THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG
Mark Twain
It was many years ago. Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town in all the region round about. But in time, Hadleyburg had the ill luck to offend a passing stranger. All through his wanderings he kept his injury in mind. He began to form a plan at once, saying to himself "I will corrupt the town."
Six months later he went to Hadleyburg, and arrived in a buggy at the house of the old cashier of the bank about ten at night. He got a sack out of the buggy and knocked at the door. A woman's voice said "Come in," and he entered, and set his sack behind the stove in the parlor, saying
politely to the old lady who sat reading the Missionary Herald by the lamp:
"Please keep your seat, madam, I will not disturb you. Can I see your husband a moment, madam?"
No, he was gone to Brixton, and might not return before morning.
"Very well, madam, it is no matter. I wanted to leave that sack in his care, to be delivered to the rightful owner when he shall be found. I am a stranger; he does not know me; I am passing through the town to discharge a matter which has been long in my mind. My errand is now completed. There is a paper attached to the sack which will explain everything. Good-night, madam."
The old lady was afraid of the mysterious stranger, and was glad to see him go. But her curiosity was roused, and she went to the sack and read the paper, as follows:
"This sack contains gold coin weighing a hundred
and sixty pounds four ounces. I am a foreigner, and am going back to my own country, to remain there. I am grateful to America for what I have received at her hands during my stay under her flag; and to a citizen of Hadleyburg, I am grateful for a kindness done me a year or two ago. I arrived in this village at night, hungry and without a penny. I begged of the right man. He gave me twenty dollars; that is to say, he gave me life. Now I have no idea who that man was, but I want him found, and
I want him to have this money. This is an honest town, an incorruptible town, and I know I can trust it. This man can be identified by the remark which he made to me; I know that he will remember it.
"And now my plan is this: Tell the contents of this writing to anyone likely to be the right man. If he answers, 'I am the man; the remark I made was so-and-so,' apply the test: open the sack, and in it you will find a sealed envelope containing that remark. If the remark mentioned by the candidate matches, give him the money, and ask no further questions, for he is the right man.
"But if you prefer a public inquiry, then publish this present writing in the local paper―with these instructions: Thirty days from now, let the candidate appear at the town-hall at eight in the evening, and hand his remark, in a sealed envelope, to the Rev. Mr. Burgess; and let Mr. Burgess see if the remark is correct: if correct, let the money be delivered, with my sincere gratitude, to my benefactor thus identified."
Mrs. Richards sat down, shaking with excitement, and was soon lost in thinkings―after this pattern: "If it had only been my husband that did it!―for we are old and poor!"
At eleven Mr. Richards arrived, and while his wife was saying, "I am SO glad you've come!" he was saying, "I am so tired―tired clear out; it is dreadful to be poor."
Then his wife told him the secret. It dazed him for a moment; then he said:
"Very well, what shall we do―make the inquiry private? No, not that; it would spoil the romance. The public method is better. Think what a noise it will make! And it will make the other towns jealous; for no stranger would trust such a thing to any town but Hadleyburg, and they know it. It's a great help for us. I must get to the
printing-office now, or I shall be too late."
Not far from his house Mr. Richards met the editor of the paper and gave him the document, and said "Here is a good thing for you, Cox―put it in."
At home again, he and his wife sat down to talk the mystery over; they were in no condition for sleep. The first question was, Who could the citizen have been who gave the stranger the twenty dollars? Both answered in the same breath―
"Barclay Goodson."
"Yes," said Richards, "he could have done it, and it would have been like him, but there's not another in the town."
"Everybody will grant that, Edward―grant it privately, anyway. For six months, now, the village has been its own proper self once more―honest, narrow, self-righteous, and stingy."
"Yes, and he was hated for it."
"I reckon he was the best-hated man among us, except the Reverend Burgess."
"Well, Burgess deserves it. Edward, doesn't it seem odd that the stranger should appoint Burgess to deliver the money?"
"He is not a bad man. I know. The whole of his unpopularity had its foundation in that one thing―the thing that made so much noise. Only he wasn't guilty of it."
"How you talk! Not guilty of it! Everybody knows he WAS guilty."
"Mary, I give you my word―he was innocent."
"How do you know?"
"I was the only man who knew he was innocent. I could have saved him, but it would have lost us the good will of so many people, Mary; and then―"
Meantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his wife what had happened, and they had talked it over eagerly.
"Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses―and us."
And now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets, from opposite directions. They met, panting, at the foot of the printing-office stairs; by the night-light there they read each other's face. Cox whispered:
"Nobody knows about this but us?"
The whispered answer was:
"Not a soul―on honour, not a soul!"
"If it isn't too late to―"
The men were starting upstairs; at this moment they were overtaken by a boy, and Cox asked,
"Is that you, Johnny?"
"Yes, sir."
"You needn't ship the early mail; wait till I tell you."
"It's already gone, sir."
"GONE?" It had the sound of unspeakable disappointment in it.
"Yes, sir.
The men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to hear the rest. Neither of them spoke during ten minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed tone,
"What possessed you to be in such a hurry, I can't make out."
Then the friends separated without a good-night, and dragged themselves home like mortally stricken men.
In both houses a discussion followed of a heated sort―a new thing; there had been discussions before, but not heated ones. Mrs. Richards said:
"If you had only waited, Edward―if you had only stopped to think; but no, you must run straight to the printing-office and spread it all over the world."
"It SAID publish it."
"It also said do it privately, if you liked."
"Why, yes―yes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would make, and what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger should trust it so―"
"But if you had only stopped to think, you would have seen that as long as the money went to somebody that needed it, and nobody would be hurt by it, and―"
"But, Mary, we have been trained all our lives long, like the whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to stop not a single moment to think when there's an honest thing to be done―"
"Oh, I know it, I know it. God knows I never had doubt of my honesty until now, under the very first temptation―. Edward, it is my belief that this town's honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours. It is a mean town, and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and so conceited about; I believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards."
II
Hadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated. Vain beyond imagination. Its nineteen principal citizens went about shaking hands and saying THIS thing adds a new word to the dictionary―HADLEYBURG, synonym for INCORRUPTIBLE―destined to live in dictionaries for ever!
Reporters began to arrive from everywhere to verify the sack and its history and write the whole thing up anew.
Then a change came. The life-long habit of reading, knitting, and contented chat, or receiving or paying neighbourly calls, was gone; nobody talked now, nobody read, nobody visited―the whole village sat at home, sighing, worrying, silent. Trying to guess out that remark.
The postman left a letter. Richards glanced at the handwriting and postmark and tossed the letter on the table. Hours later his wife was going away to bed without a good-night―custom now―but she stopped near the letter and eyed it with interest, then broke it open, and began to skim it. Richards heard something fall. It was his wife. He sprang to her side, but she cried out:
"Leave me alone, I am too happy. Read the letter!"
The letter was from a distant State, and said:
"I am a stranger to you: I have something to tell. I have just arrived home from Mexico, and learned about that episode. Of course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the only person living who does know. It was Goodson. I remember his saying he did not actually like any person in the town―not one; but that you―I think he said you―am almost sure―had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave it to you when he died. If it was you that did him that service, you are his true heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know I can trust to your honour and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am going to reveal to you the remark, satisfied that if you are not the right man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor Goodson's debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the remark 'You are far from being a bad man. Go and reform.' "HOWARD L. STEPHENSON."
It was a happy half-hour that the couple spent, caressing each other.
"Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor Goodson! I never liked him, but I love him now. And it was fine and beautiful of you never to mention it. But you ought to have told me, Edward, you ought to have told your wife, you know."
"Well, I―er―well, Mary, you see―"
Edward's mind kept wandering―trying to remember what the service was he had done Goodson.
The couple lay awake most of the night, Mary happy and busy, Edward busy, but not so happy. He was trying to recall that service. But what was it? He must recall it; it would make his peace of mind perfect.
That same Saturday evening the postman had delivered a letter to each of the other principal citizens―nineteen letters in all. They were exact copies of the letter received by Richards, but in place of Richards's name each receiver's own name appeared.
All night long eighteen principal citizens did what Richards was doing at the same time―they put in their energies trying to remember what notable service it was that they had unconsciously done Goodson.
The days passed, it began to look as if every member of the nineteen would not only spend his whole forty thousand dollars before receiving-day, but be in debt by the time he got the money. In some cases, they really spent―on credit.
For days, wherever the Reverend Burgess went, a member of the nineteen would be sure to appear, thrust an envelope privately into his hand, whisper "To be opened at the town-hall Friday evening," then vanish like a guilty thing. When the great day came at last, he had nineteen envelopes.
III
The town-hall had never looked finer. The gold-sack stood on a little table at the front of the platform where all the house could see it. At last, the Rev. Mr. Burgess rose and laid his hand on the sack, then went on to speak in warm terms of Hadleyburg's well-earned reputation for spotless honesty, and of the town's just pride in this reputation.
"And who is the guardian of this noble fame―the community as a whole? No! The responsibility is individual, not communal. From this day on each of you is its special guardian, and responsible that no harm shall come to it. Does each of you accept this trust? Then all is well. I am done. Under my hand, my friends, rests a stranger's recognition of what we are; through him the world will know what we are."
Then Mr. Burgess took an envelope out of his pocket. He read its contents:
"'The remark which I made to the distressed stranger was this: "You are very far from being a bad man; go, and reform."' Then he continued: 'We shall know in a moment now whether the remark here quoted corresponds with the one concealed in the sack; and if that shall prove to be so, this sack of gold belongs to a fellow-citizen who will stand before the nation as the symbol of the virtue which has made our town famous throughout the land―Mr. Billson!'"
Now the house caught its breath, for it discovered that whereas in one part of the hall Deacon Billson was standing up with his head meekly bowed, in another part of it Lawyer Wilson was doing the same. Everybody was puzzled, and nineteen couples were surprised and indignant.
Billson and Wilson turned and stared at each other. Billson asked:
"Why do you rise, Mr. Wilson?"
"Because I have a right to. Explain to the house why you rise."
"Because I wrote that paper."
"It is a lie! I wrote it."
Lawyer Wilson spoke up now, and said:
"I ask the Chair to read the name signed to that paper."
That brought the Chair to itself, and it read out the name:
"John Wharton BILLSON."
"There!" shouted Billson, "And what kind of apology are you going to make for the imposture which you have attempted to play here?"
"No apologies are due, sir; and as for the rest of it, I publicly charge you with stealing my note from Mr. Burgess and substituting a copy of it signed with your own name. There is no other way by which you could have gotten hold of the test-remark; I alone, of living men, possessed the secret of its wording."
Burgess rapped with his gavel, and said:
"There has evidently been a mistake, but that is all. If Mr. Wilson gave me an envelope, I still have it."
He took one out of his pocket, opened it, glanced at it, looked surprised and worried, and stood silent a few moments.
"'The remark which I made to the unhappy stranger was this: "You are far from being a bad man. Go, and reform."'" "This one," said the Chair, "is signed Thurlow G. Wilson."
"There!" cried Wilson, "I reckon that settles it! I knew perfectly well my note was stolen."
The house was puzzled. Mr. Burgess made a slit in the sack, slid his hand in, and brought out an envelope. In it were a couple of folded notes.
People jumped up and crowded around Wilson, wringing his hand and congratulating fervently―meantime the Chair was hammering with the gavel and shouting:
"Order, gentlemen! Let me finish reading, please." When quiet was restored, the reading was resumed―as follows:
"'Go and reform, or mark my words, some day, for your sins, you will die and go to Hell or Hadleyburg―try and make it the former.'"
A ghastly silence followed.
"It is useless to try to disguise the fact―we find ourselves facing a serious matter. It strikes at the town's good name. For the honor of both is now in peril. Both left out the crucial fifteen words."
He paused, then added: "There would seem to be but one way this could happen. I ask these gentlemen―was there agreement?"
A murmur sifted through the house. The Chair's voice now rose above the noise:
"Order! You forget there is still a document to be read."
When quiet had been restored he took up the document, and was going to read it, but laid it down again saying "I forgot; this is not to be read until all written communications received by me have first been read."
He took an envelope out of his pocket, reading:
"'The remark which I made to the stranger was this: "You are far from being a bad man Go, and reform."' Signed by Mr. Pinkerton the banker."
Now some laughed till tears ran down.
The Chair [reading]. "'The remark which I made,' etc. 'You are far from being a bad man. Go,' etc. Signed, 'Gregory Yates.'"
The house was in a roaring humour now and ready to get all the fun out of the occasion.
"Mr. Chairman, how many of those envelopes have you got?"
"Together with those that have been already examined, there are nineteen."
A storm of derisive applause broke out. The jollity broke loose again with the reading of the names. The list dwindled, poor old Richards keeping tally of the count.
"Be ready," Mary whispered. "Your name comes now; he has read eighteen."
The chant ended. Burgess put his hand into his pocket. The old couple, trembling, began to rise. Burgess fumbled a moment, then said:
"I find I have read them all."
Faint with joy and surprise, the couple sank into their seats, and Mary whispered:
"Oh, bless God, we are saved!―he has lost ours―I wouldn't give this for a hundred of those sacks!"
Then Wingate, the saddler, got up and proposed cheers "for the cleanest man in town, the one citizen who didn't try to steal that money―Edward Richards."
The Chair. "Order! I now offer the stranger's remaining document.
"'P.S. Citizens of Hadleyburg: There is no test-remark. Nobody made one. There wasn't a pauper stranger, nor a twenty-dollar contribution. I am hoping to eternally end your vanity and give Hadleyburg a new renown―one that will STICK and spread far. If I have succeeded, open the sack.'"
The Chair ripped the sack wide, and gathered up a handful of bright, broad, yellow coins, shook them together, then examined them.
"Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead!"
The Saddler. "Mr. Chairman, we've got one clean man left, anyway, out of the late aristocracy; and he needs money, and deserves it. I move that you appoint Jack Halliday to auction off that sack of gilt twenty-dollar pieces, and give the result to the right man―the man whom Hadleyburg delights to honour―Edward Richards."
This was received with enthusiasm. At the beginning of the auction Richards whispered in distress to his wife: "Oh, Mary, can we allow it? You see, it is an honour―reward for purity of character, and―can we
allow it? Oh, Mary, what ought we to do?"
Edward fell―that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was not satisfied, but overpowered by circumstances.
IV
At eleven a stranger knocked at the Richards' house. Mrs. Richards peeped through the shutters, then went and received an envelope, and the stranger disappeared without a word. She came back flushed and a little unsteady on her legs, and gasped out:"I am sure I recognised him! Last night it seemed to me that maybe I had seen him somewhere before."
"He is the man that brought the sack here?"
"I am almost sure of it."
"Then he is the so-called Stephenson too, and sold every important citizen in this town with his phony secret. Put them in the fire! quick! we mustn't be tempted. It is a trick to make the world laugh at us, along with the rest, and―give them to me, since you can't do it!"
He snatched them and tried to hold his grip till he could get to the stove; but he was human, he was a cashier, and he stopped a moment to make sure of the signature. Then he came near to fainting.
"Fan me, Mary, fan me! They are the same as gold!"
"Oh, how lovely, Edward! Why?"
"Signed by Harkness. What can the mystery of that be, Mary?"
"Edward, do you think―"
What is that―a note?"
"Yes. It was with the checks."
It was in the "Stephenson" handwriting, but there was no signature. It said:
"I am a disappointed man. Your honesty is beyond the reach of temptation. Dear sir, I made a bet with myself that there were nineteen corruptible men in your self-righteous community. I have lost. Take the whole pot, you are entitled to it."
Richards sighed and said:
"To think, Mary―he believes in me."
A messenger arrived and delivered an envelope. Richards took from it a note and read it; it was from Burgess:
"You saved me, in a difficult time. I saved you last night. It was at cost of a lie, but I made the sacrifice freely, and from a grateful heart. None in this village knows so well as I know how brave and good and noble you are. At bottom you cannot respect me, knowing as you do of
that matter of which I am accused, and by the general voice condemned; but I beg that you will at least believe that I am a grateful man; it will help me to bear my burden. 'Burgess.'"
"Saved, once more. And on such terms!" He put the note in the fire.
"I wish I were dead, Mary, I wish I were out of it all!"
"Oh, these are bitter days, Edward. The stabs, through their very generosity, are so deep―and they come so fast!"
Within twenty-four hours after the Richardses had received their checks their consciences were quieting down, discouraged; the old couple were learning to reconcile themselves to the sin they had committed. But they were to learn, now, that a sin takes on new and real terrors when there seems a chance that it is going to be found out. When they were alone they began to piece unrelated things together and get horrible results out of the combination. When things had got about to the worst Richards was delivered of a sudden gasp and his wife asked:
"Oh, what is it?"
"The note―Burgess's note! Its language was sarcastic! I see it now."
He quoted: "'At bottom you cannot respect me, knowing, as you do, of that matter of which I am accused'―oh, it is perfectly plain, now, God
help me! He knows I know! You see the clever phrasing. It was a trap―and like a fool, I walked into it. And Mary―!"
"Oh, it is dreadful―I know what you are going to say―he didn't return your copy of the test-remark."
"No―kept it to destroy us with. Mary, he has exposed us to some already. I know it―I know it well. I saw it in a dozen faces after church!"
In the night the doctor was called. The news went around in the morning that the old couple were seriously ill. The town was distressed; for these old people were all it had left to be proud of now.
Two days later the news was worse. The old couple were delirious, and were doing strange things. By witness of the nurses, Richards had exhibited checks for an amazing sum―$38,500!
The following day the nurses had more news. They had concluded to hide the checks, lest harm come to them; but when they searched they were gone from under the patient's pillow.
The patient said:
"Let the pillow alone; what do you want?"
"We thought it best that the checks―"
"They are destroyed. They came from Satan. I saw the hell-brand on them, and I knew they were sent to betray me to sin."
Then he fell to gabbling strange and dreadful things which were not understandable, and which the doctor admonished them to keep to themselves.
Richards was right; the checks were never seen again.
A nurse must have talked in her sleep, for within two days the forbidden gabblings were the property of the town. They seemed to indicate that Richards had been a claimant for the sack himself, and that Burgess had concealed that fact and then betrayed it.
Burgess denied it. And he said it was not fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick old man who was out of his mind. Still, suspicion was in the air and there was talk.
After a day or two it was reported that Mrs. Richards's delirious deliveries were copies of her husband's. Then came news the old couple were dying. Richards's mind cleared in his latest hour, and he sent for Burgess. Burgess said:
"Let the room be cleared. I think he wishes to say something in privacy."
"No!" said Richards; "I want witnesses. I want you all to hear my confession, so that I die a man, and not a dog. I was clean, like the rest; and like the rest I fell when temptation came. I signed a lie and claimed the sack. Mr. Burgess remembered that I had done him a service, and in gratitude (and ignorance) he suppressed my claim and saved me. You know the thing charged against Burgess years ago. My testimony could have cleared him, and I was a coward and left him to suffer disgrace―. My servant betrayed my secret to him―"
"No one has betrayed anything to me―"
"And then he repented of the saving kindness which he had done me, and he EXPOSED me―as I deserved―"
"Never! I make oath―"
"Out of my heart I forgive him."
Burgess's protests fell on deaf ears; the dying man passed away without knowing that once more he had done poor Burgess a wrong. The old wife died that night.
The last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen prey to the fiendish sack; the town was stripped of the last rag of its ancient glory. Its mourning was not showy, but it was deep.
By act of the Legislature, Hadleyburg was allowed to change its name to (never mind what―I will not give it away), and leave one word out of the motto that for generations had graced the town's official seal.
It is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that catches it napping again.
Posts
